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On Mar 23, 2006, at 6:04 PM, Alice Vrielink wrote:
Dear crystallography colleagues,
As a member of the crystallographic community, I am somewhat alarmed
by the negative comments from granting agencies such as the NIH
regarding crystallographic proposals as related to me by several
friends and colleagues.
...
When I entered the field, I realized that such a mature field as
crystallography had enjoyed a rebirth due to its application to
biological systems. That is the reason so many good opportunities
exist in the field. It is great that this happened, but nothing lasts
forever, and funding agencies are always looking for the next wave.
I invite everyone here to think beyond the box (or unit cell) if you
will. We at Cornell are developing a next-generation x-ray source
(the Energy Recovery Linac) that will produce fully coherent,
nanometer-sized beams having flux orders of magnitude beyond what is
available today. Fully programmable pulses as short as 100
femtosecond will be available, and the operation of the ring will be
highly stable and CW-like (no fills necessary, no need for top-off).
Most existing x-ray applications should be dramatically improved on
an ERL. The real point of the ERL however, is to be able to do things
that we can only dream about today.
I invite everyone to think about what you might do with such a
facility that simply cannot be done today.
What kinds of experiments might you perform?
What are the key biological application areas that should drive this
effort? (where is Biology headed?)
I will shortly be announcing a series of Summer workshops on science
applications of the ERL. Two days (June 21-22) will be devoted
exclusively to biology. I invite everyone who is interested in the
future to attend and contribute:
http://erl.chess.cornell.edu/workshop/main.htm
Things to think about:
coherent diffraction imaging & microscopy - non crystalline samples!
protein nanocrystallography
using coherence to phase structures
time-resolved crystallography
time-resolved and nanoscale solution scattering
x-ray nanoprobes
spectromicroscopy
full-field imaging (phase contrast)
microtomography
photoelectron emission microscopy (PEEM) (combine EM and x-rays!)
Key beam properties to remember:
o highest spectral brightness (high-flux, collimated nanobeams)
o coherent x-rays
o very small source size (can produce 1-10 nm beams and larger)
o round source size
o high stability
o high rep rate (> 1 GHz)
o fast pulses (as low as 100 fs)
o deterministic programmable pulse trains
We welcome your input.
Richard Gillilan
MacCHESS
Cornell University
